Velvet Detective
by BrutalAftershock
Summary: Tohru Adachi is behind bars, and his position needs to be filled. So from Tokyo comes detective Ryuunosuke Yamato, sleuth, Persona user and Shadow slayer extraordinaire. During a visit to a peculiar blue room, he learns that he is a Fool, and meets an intriguing ally. A new threat is on the rise and only he and his new allies stand a chance of stopping it. Test fic.


**Hey guys! Doing something a little different now. Now I realise I've neglected my other stories out of sheer laziness, but the other problem is that these stories are merely experiments. Now, with them being experiments, I'm having a hard time selecting which one I want to commit myself to. Anyways, let's start this and I hope you guys like it. As we all know I don't own Persona or anything related to Megami Tensei or Shin Megami Tensei, only my copies of the games. Honestly I don't see the need for disclaimers. It's pretty obvious that fanfic writers don't own these things.**

**Brief Summary: This is post P4. Yu Narukami has left Inaba and isn't returning until the summer. In that time a new detective, Ryuunosuke Yamato, is being transferred to Inaba after the incarceration of Tohru Adachi. However, he himself is a Persona user who was involved in an incident in 2001 involving himself, four other Persona users and Angra Mainyu. He has the Wild Card ability but has gone relatively unnoticed by the Residents of the Velvet Room. Now he's being called once again to defend the world from an unseen threat, this time with an unexpected partner.**

Velvet Detective

Chapter 1: She who governs power

Ryuunosuke waited for his train from Tokyo to Inaba. It was the 20th of March, the day he was being transferred from Tokyo to Inaba because one of the detectives there had been arrested on suspicion of murder. He'd heard all about it as these murders were pretty gruesome from the descriptions given. He sighed as he waited for his train. He was 28 and his car had been totalled the day before, leaving him at the mercy of public transport. It embarrassed him, as he, a 28 year old working man was unable to drive to where he was needed.

As he was stewing in his annoyance, he noticed a faint fluttering his peripherals. He turned his head to the side, seeing a bright blue butterfly. Normally he'd discard it as butterflies were nothing out of the ordinary. However, this one captivated him. The wings of the insect were a bright blue colour that seemed to shimmer as if they were ethereal, like they'd dissipate if he tried to touch it. It seemed so out of place to him.

Ryuunosuke held out his hand, extending his finger as to offer a perch for the butterfly. It fluttered over to him and landed weightlessly on his extended index finger. A strange feeling welled up in him, and a slight buzzing made itself known in his head.

'I've seen this specific butterfly before. But where? When?' he thought to himself. It was extremely familiar yet it still eluded him as to why. The train stopped and hissed, breaking his focus. He returned his attention back to his finger but the butterfly had simply vanished. Shaking his head, he walked to the train, passing a certain tall boy with grey hair in a bowl cut, grey eyes and carrying some luggage. The two locked eyes for a moment as they passed each other, and then Ryuunosuke knew that the kid was a Persona user.

During his time as a heavy Persona user, he'd trained himself to be able to spot a Persona user at a moments notice. It was in their eyes. Every Persona user had a certain look or gleam in their eyes that to the trained eye, set them apart from everyone else. Years had passed since then and he'd honed this ability to the point where he was almost never wrong.

He sat in an empty carriage in the middle of the train next to the window. As the train sped up, he noticed the grey haired kid standing and staring at the train, more specifically at him. Ryuunosuke smirked and opened his left hand, and in a small flash of blue flame, his Arcana card appeared, making the kid's eyes widen, as if he'd just confirmed a suspicion. After just a few seconds, the kid was out of sight, as was the station.

_Evening, approaching Yaso-Inaba_

Ryuunosuke's eyes grew heavy as the day dragged on. The slow rocking of the train had him growing drowsy. He closed his eyes, only intending to relieve their soreness from a long night of paper work the day before but he was fast asleep before he knew it.

_The Velvet Room_

The detective awoke to find himself inside a small seating area in what seemed to be a limousine. The interior of the room was mostly blue, with the ceiling being black and a small glass drinks cabinet off to the left. Opposite him was a man with a mostly bald head, a very long nose, wide bloodshot eyes and wearing a fine tailored black suit and a pair of pristine white gloves. He was striking a Gendo pose, hiding his seemingly permanent grin.

Beside him sat an elegant looking woman. She was extremely beautiful with wavy silver hair that was set with a dark blue headband. She wore a formal looking dress with the bottom ending just past her knees and was the same shade of deep blue. She also wore black stockings and blue high heels. She had pale skin and bright golden eyes that he swore had a very faint glow of power to them. She exuded strength and maturity, but at the same time a kind of subtlety and gentleness.

''Oh my, it seems today we lose one guest and gain another. How unexpected.'' said the man with a smooth but aged voice. ''Welcome to the Velvet Room. I am Igor, a Resident of this place. Would you tell us your name?'' the man, Igor asked.

Ryuunosuke was slightly confused. Now he'd seen some weird stuff in his time, as was customary to a Persona user, even more so when you've got an entire zoo of Personae running around in your brain, so he was used to weird shit happening in his subconscious. But no matter where he'd been or what he'd done, he'd never been here.

''My name is Ryuunosuke Yamato. Now, you wouldn't happen to be related to Personae and Persona users would you? Or are you both figments of my warped imagination?'' Ryuunosuke asked.

Igor shifted his hands from his face and rested them on his knees while the woman turned her face towards him fully. ''I thought as much.'' he said. ''So, why am I here? Need another god dead I assume?''

Igor shared a look with the woman next to him. 'I suspect he is experienced. In which case, why hasn't he made a contract sooner?' he thought with a troubled look. It was hard to tell just what kind of face Igor was making.

''You have a Persona don't you?'' the woman asked. ''Oh, forgive my lack of manners. I'm Margaret, my master's assistant. A pleasure to meet you Yamato-san.'' she said politely. Ryuunosuke was entranced by her melodic voice for a moment but managed to collect himself after she'd finished.

''And it's a pleasure to meet you too. Please, drop the honorific, I'm too informal as a person to really care about it. My bosses hate me for it.'' he replied with a chuckle. ''But yes, I do have a Persona, several of them actually.'' Margaret's eyes widened in surprise.

''So you too possess the Wild Card ability?'' she asked incredulously. Ryuunosuke just shrugged.

''If that's what it's called then yeah, I guess.'' he replied nonchalantly. ''I'm guessing that's some sort of big deal?''

Igor turned his hand so his palm faced the ceiling while holding it in the air. Several Arcana cards appeared in the same blue flame. He turned them on their backs with a small wave of his hand and suddenly went into deep thought.

''It seems that our guest here is quite different indeed. He embarked on a journey without possession of the Fool Arcana. That never happens.'' he then turned his bloodshot gaze to Ryuunosuke. ''You are quite the anomaly. You are a Wild Card user, but have successfully completed your journey already. Unless...'' he trailed off. ''Unless your real journey only begins now.'' he said.

As if on queue an Arcana card blazed into existence in front of him, revealing it to be the Fool. But, the same had happened for Margaret.

''Oh my. I'm afraid I'm finding it difficult to understand this.'' she said looking bewildered. She then closed her eyes and calmed herself. ''Very well then. It seems Fate has a plan for me. Then so be it.'' Margaret said, fully accepting the situation.

''It seems you must leave here for now.'' Igor said, looking somewhat down. ''Well, you needn't worry about your duties in your absence. I'm sure Theodore will be more than happy to fill your role in the meantime.''

''Wait, wait, wait. You're saying that whatever destiny or whatever awaits me, suddenly just throws itself at me, drags Margaret into it, with no context, meaning or apparent objective? This is awfully vague.'' The detective said. Igor Gendo posed again and nodded.

''Fate is a very unpredictable thing. However, given your experience, this should be nothing new to you. I believe you met one of our former guests before you arrived.'' Igor said.

''They grey haired kid?'' Ryuunosuke replied. Igor nodded and wrung his hands.

''Yes. Not too long ago, He and a group of his friends defeated another embodiment of humanity's wish for death. You could say you will be doing much the same soon.'' Igor informed.

Ryuunosuke sighed heavily and scowled. ''I understand that the world's a shitty place and a lot of terrible things happen in it. But do we seriously want to die that badly? We have nukes and drone warfare for that. Leave all powerful deities out of it, humanity's got enough problems.''

''Quite so. Now I'm afraid your time here is over for now. Farewell and good luck.'' Igor said as the detective's vision darkened and his hearing began to become muffled.

_Yaso-Inaba station._

Ryuunosuke awoke with a small jolt as few people began to leave the train. He stood and stretched, his bones popping and muscles becoming loose again. He exited the train and lo and behold, Margaret was sat waiting patiently on a bench outside the ticket office. He approached her and sat down on the other end of the bench.

''Okay, you're real. I'm guessing you can just...do that whole in and out of dreams thing?'' Ryuunosuke asked. Margaret's golden gaze met his.

''Yes, I can just do that.'' she said with a chuckle. ''Well, more importantly, I'm accompanying you on your journey, so I'm assuming that you have adequate accommodation and income?'' she said donning her serious, no nonsense demeanour.

''Yes...why?'' he replied looking confused. Margaret just chuckled again.

''Well someone has to show me how the human world works, no? I don't have money, nor property, so I'm having to put my trust in you.'' she said getting straight to the point.

''Oh, yeah. Guess you got a good point there. Well luckily I'm not married or anything like that so I don't see a problem. Besides, I kinda get the vibe that you could bitch slap me into oblivion on a whim so...yeah.'' Ryuunosuke said scratching the back of his head awkwardly.

Margaret openly laughed at this. ''I guess in a way I could, but we don't know that for a fact. Not yet.'' she said gaining a certain look in her eyes. One that screamed to fight her. In a desperate attempt to make her forget that notion he, changed the subject.

''Well anyways I'm a detective here from tomorrow. So that's income covered, and its actually decent pay too. I've got a house here too. Well, it's not really mine but more on loan because of my job. Luckily it's a two person house on the edge of town but close enough to the shopping district that getting groceries and stuff isn't a pain.'' Ryuunosuke explained.

Margaret nodded with a small smile. ''Well it seems this journey is off to a good start. But, I feel there is something I should do to contribute. I'm not comfortable having you as our only source of income. I feel that I would simply be coasting off your earnings, which doesn't seem at all fair, now does it?'' Margaret stated rhetorically.

Ryuunosuke was impressed. He'd been under the impression that he'd be the one handling everything financially, meaning, he was paying for everything. But it seemed that Margaret, whether for personal pride or genuine desire to help, was prepared to help him out rather than soak up his money.

''Well that's different.'' Ryuunosuke replied, his voice conveying some awe. Margaret raised an eyebrow at him.

''Oh, why's that?'' she asked. Ryuunosuke went on to explain that generally, he'd end up paying for everything and carrying them both. Perhaps he was recounting all his past relationships, but they'd done exactly that.

Margaret nodded, a small frown upon her face. ''Well, I can tell you right now that was never my intention. Besides, I would get bored not having some sort of role to fill.'' she said.

Ryuunosuke nodded with a smile. ''Well that's good to know.'' he said as he stood up and turned to her, offering his hand. ''We should get going anyway. Looks like we've got some settling in to do.'' Margaret chuckled and took his hand, standing up. He let go and turned. He breathed deeply and smiled a small smile as he watched the sun slowly rolling over the horizon.

'Looks like I'm gonna have to use my Personae again soon. Jeez, it's already been over a decade since I last used them. Ugh, they're gonna be pissed.' Ryuunosuke thought with a grimace.

_'WE ARE...' _came a multitude of voices in his head.

He gulped loudly. '...Shit.'

**And done. Well I've got nothing to say than besides review, share ideas, criticize, the usual stuff. BrutalAftershock out.**


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